Although she was wrong on just about every policy preference, I will miss Molly Ivins, the Texas-based liberal columnist who died last week. She was a happy warrior who only occasionally lapsed into bitterness, and sometimes she could be screamingly funny. She originated the term "Shrub" for George W. Bush and "Good Hair" for Texas Gov. Rick Parry. And she was one of those old-fashioned liberals who still valued civil liberties and certain kinds of personal freedom (as inconsistent as this is with wanting economic freedom to be heavily regulated, which is the besetting sin of modern so-called liberals -- we libertarians still resent proto-socialists stealing the term from our intellectual forebears) and she did so sincerely and mostly effectively.
She was wrong, of course, when she quipped "Good thing we've still got politics -- finest form of free entertainment ever invented." Politics is actually rather low-grade entertainment, even for some of us who are oddly obsessed with it, and it is far from free. Check the deductions on your paycheck. But she left journalists of all stripes an enduring piece of advice: "Raise more hell."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Sorry, Alan, but Molly Ivins was incapable of writing an article without spewing venom and bitterness. Her targets were conservatives and she had a permanent tumescence for George Bush in particular.
Such language from the right is characterized by liberals as "hate speech." But when liberals spew hate speech, they spin it as "truth."
Post a Comment